Michael Dirda on the books of the year that "continue to linger most vividly in my memory."

The novelist's other life, as a sensitive recorder of "tears in things." Read more...

The fascinating folklore of the witches' sabbath in medieval Europe. Read more...

The idiosyncratic memoir of a visit to India, by the celebrated author of My Dog Tulip. Read more...

A thousand years on, a noblewoman's gleanings from Japanese courtly life still shimmer with beauty. Read more...

Michael Dirda ventures into the phantasmagoric world of Sadegh Hedayat's The Blind Owl. Read more...

How classical scholars have redefined and rediscovered the fascinations of "Late Antiquity." Read more...

Michael Dirda on Goethe's penetrating tale of four lovers at cross purposes. Read more...

Michael Dirda revisits a classic fantasy that unlocks the disturbing possibilities of fairyland. Read more...

Giorgio Vasari's gossipy, glorious catalogue of personalities is one of the Renaissance's defining works.

Michael Dirda on Stendhal's memoir of his childhood -- unpublishable in the author?s lifetime. Read more...

A host of haunting stories, made to savor by a December fireside.

Life on a small island in the English Channel is captured in this novel from a little-known author. Read more...